


In December (Only Love)

by disbelief11, luninosity



Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) RPF
Genre: Epiphanies, Falling In Love, First Kiss, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Love Confessions, M/M, Miscommunication, Mistletoe, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-26
Updated: 2012-11-26
Packaged: 2017-11-19 14:15:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,335
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/574133
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/disbelief11/pseuds/disbelief11, https://archiveofourown.org/users/luninosity/pseuds/luninosity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mistletoe and first kisses and fluff. Includes diabolical (but secretly benevolent) Kevin Bacon, egregious abuse of holiday greenery, boys figuring out the art of communication, and lots of kissing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In December (Only Love)

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Weezer's "December", this time. (Yes, I know, it's not quite December, yet. But it's never too early for holiday fluff, right...?)

Really, everything that happened began with a chilly December afternoon and a diabolical Kevin Bacon, and was therefore Kevin's fault. Entirely. Inarguably. One hundred percent.

Of course Michael had noticed him wandering innocently away from the bar set, earlier. And had immediately gone over to inspect everything, just in case grease had appeared on the floor or the screws had gone missing from every bar stool. He couldn't find anything, though, and had eventually given up. He was sure there had to be something, but Matthew was scowling at him for the delay and he couldn't make everyone wait any longer.

Admittedly, he--and James, and honestly mostly James, in Michael’s opinion, considering whose idea it’d been--probably deserved some sort of retribution, after the whipped-cream-inside-Kevin's-supervillain-helmet incident. But if there did turn out to be something sneakily slippery on the floor and James fell down and got hurt, Michael would quite possibly have to commit murder.

He spent a second pondering that instinct. Maybe it was strange, that his brain had apparently decided that James potentially getting hurt would be the worst of all possible outcomes. Probably not the kind of thing one should think about one's co-worker.

But he'd already seen bruises along those graceful arms, after filming the mock-jet scenes, when they'd been tossed around on wires and into unsympathetic floors. The bruises had cast evil little shadows over all the uncomplaining freckles, and Michael had wanted to reach out and touch them all, to make them go away somehow, to keep James from having to be in pain a second longer than necessary.

Jesus, he thought. Anyone hearing those thoughts would think he was in love with James.

They'd be right, of course. Which was why no one, not ever, was hearing those thoughts.

Right. Time to focus. James was grinning at him, no doubt filing away the delay to mock him about later, and Hugh was waving from the bar—"Come on, you two, not gonna wait for you to woo me forever!"—and so he grinned right back at James, and they walked forward, in unison as always. Started to talk. Hugh, with his usual flawless timing, drawled right back, "Fuck off," and he looked at James, and they walked back out.

And then did it again. And again. After the fifth take—Matthew had said, pathetically, "Just one or two more, okay? It's not quite perfect!"—James stopped, looked at Hugh, and said, "Oh, come on, please?" and the entire room cracked up.

Not quite perfect, hell, Michael decided. James couldn't be anything other than perfect if he tried. Also, he clearly needed to top that, next time.

This time he sat down next to Hugh on the bar stool. Leaned in, flirtatiously. Hugh plainly was trying not to laugh, and started to say "Fuck off" again, and Michael murmured "Only if you join me," and watched in satisfaction as Hugh choked on the cigar. Excellent.

Oddly, James didn't look quite as amused. And that was...worrying. He knew James knew he was...not gay, not exactly, just appreciative of beauty in every form; they'd had that conversation, one alcohol-accompanied evening in the hotel bar, so late it'd become too early in the morning, with the glittering clarity of half-drunken confessions. He hadn't thought James had cared. Maybe he'd been wrong.

Hugh was also looking at James. And then back at Michael. And smiling. Michael suddenly felt very afraid.

This time, Hugh went with "Go fuck yourselves," which made Matthew snort and then look thoughtful, behind the camera, and they looked at each other, and Michael, just for fun, tipped his head toward the door: shall we? He didn't expect James to play along, not really, but he got lifted eyebrows and an expression that said why not? as if he, or maybe Charles, was actually considering it, as they walked out of the bar.

That take, of course, was the one Matthew loved. "Can we do it again?"

"We can, but do we have to?"

"Quit complaining. Actors don't need to eat. You all live on admiration and positive reviews."

"I like food," James said plaintively. "And also if we don't get lunch I'm stealing the Christmas cookies out of your office. Again."

"My sister makes those, and they're not for you. All right, one more."

Hugh, meanwhile, had been glancing around the set, thoughtfully. Had looked upwards, and then chuckled, gleefully, to himself. Michael tried not to be concerned.

The scene went well. Hugh's line went well. They turned around to go. And then Hugh stood up, put both arms around Michael, said, "Or you could fuck me!" and kissed him, decisively, on the lips.

Half the crew started laughing. The other half cheered. Michael shrugged, mentally—Hugh was, after all, pretty damn attractive—and went with it. He'd never been opposed to putting on a show.

Hugh started laughing, too, afterwards. "Not bad. Could work on your technique, a little. Kind of forceful."

"Oh, fuck you. I'm not asking you for advice. Just out of curiosity, why?"

"Well, partly because you started it, and partly because of that." Hugh pointed. Michael looked. The mistletoe hovered happily, tied to the ceiling, above them, green leaves shining benevolently in the indoor lighting. Well. Damn. Kevin had managed to sneak in, after all.

"Anyway, see you around!" Hugh actually patted him on the head--which would've made Michael want to punch him in the face, except he really couldn't hate Wolverine, no one could--and then vanished out the door.

And Michael turned around to ask James what he thought, maybe about return pranks for Kevin, or whether Hugh was ever going to be allowed back on set, or when would be the best time to steal the unfairly delicious Christmas cookies from Matthew again.

And James was gone.

 

James stumbled outside, blinded by the just-past-lunchtime sunlight and the memory of Michael's lips on Hugh's. Michael flirting with Hugh. Michael kissing Hugh.

That thought was currently flying through the inside of his head like some sort of deranged sniper’s bullet of want and lust and something else, something new, careening around and leaving shocked holes in its wake. Oh god, he needed to pull himself together and get to his trailer before Michael emerged, too, and found him still standing outside, unable to move because his legs felt absolutely broken. No support at all.

"James? You okay?"

"...what? Oh. Hi. How's it going, Kevin?"

"Are you feeling all right? You look a little pale." He couldn’t quite tell whether that was concern, or some sort of vaguely sadistic glee; either way, he answered, because that was what normal, non-shell-shocked people did when asked a question.

"Do I? Just feeling a bit queasy, I guess. Matthew kept us for a few more takes with Hugh..." It was all Matthew's fault, that's what it was. If Matthew didn't have the crazy idea that actors could subsist on adulation alone, hadn't pushed for another take, that kiss wouldn't have happened. Or maybe Hugh had been  hungry too, and Michael's lips had looked too tasty to pass up.

James tried to shake that thought from his mind. Didn’t succeed. "I—I probably just need to eat."

"Ah yes, the scene with Hugh! Hey, did anyone notice the special touch I added to the bar set?" Kevin was smiling, innocently. Far too innocently for Kevin Bacon.

James blinked the blinding sun and jealousy from his eyes and tried to keep from glaring in response. Why would Kevin be smiling? Had he had something to do with what James’s brain was now referring to as That Kiss? What the hell was going on?

He did consider it a triumph when he managed to prevent himself from stammering, though the words weren’t exactly eloquent when they plopped out. "You—what special touch? What did you do?"

When Kevin barked out a completely mental laugh, James decided the universe just didn't like him. Why else would he be standing there waiting for Kevin to confess when he felt like he was drowning under the thunder of his heartbeat?  Oh god, the taunting echoes of Michael’s suggestive "Only if you join me" weren’t helping matters either; now he felt like he might hyperventilate as well as drown.

Kevin stopped laughing long enough to answer. "The mistletoe! I tacked some up on the ceiling earlier."

The ocean of noise in his head settled down into an unnatural stillness. "You did what?"

"Mistletoe!" Kevin cackled to himself again. "Hey, I hear there's fried chicken at craft services. See you over there!"

He managed to wave. And then to put one foot in front of the other, and then to do it all again. Until he made it back to his trailer, with no memory at all of covering the distance, though clearly he had.

The miniscule space, four cozy walls and that recognizably lumpy couch and the sympathetic plastic of his coffee machine, had never felt so welcoming. Once safely inside, he could breathe more normally, though the feeling of being swamped by dangerous waters remained.

“Calm your mind,” Charles would say. James had to snort at the ridiculousness of that command; right now that definitely fell into the “easier to say than to do” category. And then he tried to do it anyway.

Apparently that only worked with the weight of psychic suggestion behind it. Why couldn’t he actually be a telepathic mutant superhero, again?

“Get a hold of yourself,” he whispered. “You’ve got plenty of experience in analyzing character motivation; you can absolutely handle this.” Right, time for an emotional inventory.

“One, I am jealous. No avoiding that now, is there? Jealous that Michael flirted with—and kissed—Hugh.”

The replay of said kiss flashed across his mind, inconsiderately. He started pacing the length of his trailer, in case the movement would help the images go away. Didn’t work. Of course not.

“Two, where the hell did that jealousy come from? I’ve seen Michael flirt with loads of people on set.” That was true; Michael’s default settings were ‘gorgeous,’ ‘grinning (like a fiend which should be scary but somehow worked on Michael),’ and ‘smoldering sex on sinfully long legs,’ and James hadn’t been the only one to notice. Zoe, Rose, Jennifer, and several crew members seemed to have an unofficial competition going on as to who could come up with the most excuses to touch Michael and Michael wasn’t complaining.

James nearly missed a step of his pacing, as he puzzled through to the next item on his list. “Three...those have all been women.” Oh. Oh.

It was one thing to listen to Michael’s martini-fueled confessions that he wasn’t exactly as straight as people might think, and quite another to see it in action. Put your money where your mouth is and all that. And right up until that last take, it’d all been just talk. But Michael had looked like he enjoyed that kiss with Hugh, which would be insanely hot (and incendiary fuel for James’ nightly fantasies) if it wasn’t making James feel so miserable.

“Four. Bloody hell, I’m...I’m in love with Michael.”

Of course he’d already known that he found Michael attractive. It wasn’t only the whole sex on legs thing either, though that didn’t hurt in any way. All the time that they spent goofing around, laughing, and talking, and the ease of just being with each other—that was all wonderfully heady stuff.

But he’d discounted the depth of what he’d been feeling. He’d put it down to on-set chemistry, the kind that flared up brightly and tended to fizzle out just as fast, after shooting wrapped. So what if the intense look in Michael’s eyes, or that carefree laugh, could make James’ heart wobble a bit? Michael was his friend. A good friend. Who just happened to be easy on the eyes. One who regularly made James smile and laugh and look forward to each day of filming, and. And.

…and, oh, he was hopelessly, spectacularly, idiotically, in love. And how’d he gone this far without realizing it? Idiotically might not be a strong enough adverb, there.

“Settle, Petal,” James mumbled to himself. “So you’re in love with Michael. That doesn’t mean he’s in love with you. You’re friends, real friends, and you’re not going to do anything to fuck up the friendship. You can’t do anything to fuck up the friendship.”

The thought of what he could lose, if that happened, built into a heavy presence, in the silent room. It sank into his gut like a stone through ocean water, tearing at his insides as it fell, sucking the air out of his chest.

“Right, it’s a damn good thing Charles and Erik have this tragic love affair, isn’t it?” he said, to the coffee machine. It listened happily, unbothered by his moment of emotional crisis, so he kept talking. “I can flirt as much as I want, as Charles, and he’ll never know that’s really me.” Which, granted, might be a little bit, or a lot, like lying, but if that was all he could have from Michael without jeopardizing their friendship, he would take what he could get. That would have to be enough.

A knock on his trailer door and the PA’s muffled “Ten minutes, Mr. McAvoy,” brought him back to safer shores. “You’re a professional, James, get it together,” he grumbled, this time; the coffee machine mutely agreed, and James splashed water on his face, ran his hands through his hair, which did no good at all, and took a few deep breaths, and headed out for the next scene.

As he walked, though, he swore he could hear Kevin’s dry chuckle and the word “Mistletoe!” and answering laughter and catcalls.  He walked faster. Pretended he couldn’t hear anything at all.

It wasn’t until that night, while he was lying alone in the too-large hotel bed and wishing he’d thought to grab socks because his toes were slowly turning to ice, that it occurred to him that Kevin's evil mistletoe plan could be useful.

 

Over the next three days, Michael found himself convinced of, appropriately, three things about himself. One was flattering; one was a little worrying, though also kind of amusing. The third was heartbreaking.

Of course it was that third realization that preoccupied him the most. Like scars, he thought. Or scabs, over unhealed wounds, and he’d only make them worse by picking at them, but he couldn’t help letting those thoughts surface anyway, in quiet minutes, in the dark crevices of the night, alone in his hotel room. Exposed nerves that, amazingly, no one else ever noticed.

But, then, he didn’t want anyone to notice; he had enough pride left for that. He could go on functioning with a broken heart. It’d kept beating, right? So obviously he was fine. Or could pretend to be so, well enough.

All three realizations, regardless of their varying impact, were the fault, undeniably, of Kevin Bacon and his horrible mistletoe.

And if Michael could keep thinking that, could keep blaming Kevin, he’d not have to admit his own role in this particular farcical tragedy, namely the apparent willingness he’d demonstrated when kissing Hugh. That willingness had been noticed by everyone on the set, or possibly everyone on the planet judging from the way bodies kept popping out of the woodwork, male, female, and at least once indeterminately either. And the damn mistletoe was showing up everywhere.

Hung over doorways. Tied to his costumes. Stuck to his chair during breaks. Occasionally flying in out of nowhere at all, as had happened when he’d been talking to Matthew before a scene. He’d’ve sworn that space had been greenery-free, out in front of the mansion, not a treacherous doorway in sight, and Rose had run up, snatched a flying bundle out of the air as someone tossed it over their heads, and kissed him soundly on the lips.

In the aftermath, Matthew’d muttered something that sounded suspiciously like “That was mine,” and then, “good thing I know where Kevin gets his supply…” Michael’d been afraid to ask.

He had kissed Rose back, of course. He did want to be a good sport about all this, and it was nearly Christmas, and no one was taking it seriously anyway, and, well, that was the first of his realizations: it was flattering. He couldn’t help being just a tiny bit pleased by the attention. By all the evident attraction toward his lips. Kind of fun.

That part wasn’t the tragedy, though.

Neither was the second realization, though it was related, at least on an entirely physical level: he never would’ve guessed it, but he was truthfully getting a bit tired of all the kissing.

Three days. He’d had to buy extra chapstick. And of course that was obnoxiously whiny—seriously, what person in his current situation would complain?—but he was only thinking that one in his own head, and surely he was allowed that mental space, at least. No one’d discovered how to pounce on him in there. Yet.

So that’d been the worrying-and-amusing part: the conclusion that it was possible to get sick of being kissed, and that he had.

They were all fun kisses, yes. Exactly that. Fun. And ridiculous and silly and faux-sexy, sometimes, and he was being a good sport, but. But he didn’t want any of those lips, against his. Not the way he wanted the touch of someone else’s.

And that, of course, was the third realization. And the heartbreak.

James hadn’t kissed him. Hadn’t wanted to kiss him. Hadn’t even tried, as far as Michael could tell.

Had laughed, when the topic had come up; had made jokes, when Jennifer and Nicholas, working together, had leapt out of a mansion-set doorway and onto Michael, right in front of startled tropical-ocean eyes. But the laughter had seemed a bit hollow, and the oceans weren’t calm, down in the depths. Almost pained, Michael had thought at the time.

James didn’t want to kiss him. Evidently couldn’t understand why anyone would.

And Michael had felt his heart crack open on the spot, because somewhere in the back of his mind he’d been imagining the whole encounter going a very different way. He couldn’t’ve been more available, the opportunities more perfect, orchestrated by the holiday season and assisted by Kevin in some diabolical fashion. James could’ve tried, if he’d wanted to. He hadn’t.

And Michael’s stupid heart had kept foolishly, romantically, hoping that James had just been waiting for the perfect moment, which of course would’ve been any moment James chose.

But it’d been three days.

His heart ached, inside his chest. He didn’t have chapstick for that. No balm to smooth over all the sore places.

James wandered over onto the set. Michael watched, covertly, from a distance, and tried not to look like he was pining. He wasn’t precisely certain _how_ to not look like he was pining, because frankly he’d been in love with James for so long that pining was an inescapable part of his life at this point, but he was a good actor, and so he told himself, sternly, to act like someone not in love with James, and thought that he succeeded, most of the time.

James looked distracted. Preoccupied. Worried, even, and James shouldn’t be worried, and each one of Michael’s instincts shouted at him to go find out what was wrong and do something, anything, to make it right.

He could do that, though. He was allowed. Because they were friends. He could change the world for James, until bruised blue eyes smiled again, and say that he’d done it as a friend.

He ran across the mansion grounds under the sharp-edged sunlight, towards James’s side.

 

The trouble, James had realized, with appropriating Kevin’s Evil Mistletoe Plan was this: the simple brilliance of it had inspired a deluge of competition. So much mistletoe had been doled out over the past three days that James was convinced he had underestimated the _depths_ of Kevin’s evil genius. It was clear now that thinking Kevin’s plan began and ended with one kiss in the bar set was too short-sighted. Why stop with one kiss when you could create a whole army of mistletoe-wielding fiends?  
  
The escalating competition for a kiss had become, he thought, interminable torture. There was no escaping the mistletoe intrigue, alliances, and sleight of hand playing out in front of him. He wasn’t sure which was worse: the kisses he had to endure witnessing—and that was a good test of his acting ability; he didn’t think anyone had noticed exactly how much each press of someone else’s lips to Michael’s tore at him—or the kisses he didn’t see and was forced to hear about later. Loudly, and in wrenchingly sordid detail.  
  
There was also a small, unhelpful, _persistent_ portion of James’ brain that silently railed against the injustice of Kevin’s evil plan. How in the hell had Kevin finagled it so that Michael was the sole target? All these beautiful people around. So many possible lips for kissing. And no one was kissing anyone but Michael.  
  
Overall, James’d found himself torn between wanting to congratulate Kevin and wanting to strangle the smirk off Kevin’s terrible face.  
  
His quandary hadn’t stopped him from scooping up a little bundle of the greenery in question when he’d found it lying forlornly just outside the door to his trailer, though. No doubt someone’d dropped it on the way to steal a kiss from Michael. Again.  
  
Not that James was hoping someone would want to kiss _him_ , at least not seriously--with the exception of Michael, of course, but then Michael _was_ exceptional, and James tried not to have hope but the emotion sprang up continually despite his best efforts--but it would be wonderful if at least a few people would go after someone else so James might have a kiss-free moment with Michael. Kiss-free other than the two of them. The three of them, if one counted James’ nerves too.  
  
His imaginings of that moment were both invigorating and terrifying. He liked to imagine the kiss leading to more kisses, kisses freely given even without Kevin’s evil mistletoe, all because Michael wanted to kiss James as well. Repeatedly.  
  
Those imaginings’d been happening repeatedly, also. Pretty much all the time, in fact. He saw Michael’s lips in his dreams. And daydreams. In his shower, for example, that morning.  
  
He tried his best not to think about what would happen if Michael didn’t share those imaginings. Didn’t want to kiss him.  
  
If all he got from Michael was a perfunctory smooch and a friendly chuckle about Kevin’s practical joke, he might go ahead and die of the horrible combination of mortification and unrequited love right then and there. He spent a second thinking about that, and then decided that first, picturing his own death was a horribly morbid thing to do, and second that that’d be one of the more embarrassing ways he could picture to go, and third that he would no longer care about the embarrassment, since, after all, he’d be dead.  
  
But he didn’t want that to be Michael’s last memory of him, which was a pitiful thought as well, but did prompt him to conclude that he probably would not, in fact, actually die.  
  
He had noticed that Michael was starting to look less enthused about all the kissing, not that anyone else was picking up on those cues, or if they were, they were ignoring it for their own purposes. But James was spending a lot of time with Michael, and spent all those moments thinking about Michael, so he couldn’t help but see the new strain in those normally playful eyes and the wary way Michael had taken to approaching the sets.  
  
Which meant, of course, that James now had a new concern. What if he had waited too long to try out the mistletoe? What if Michael was tired of all these shenanigans and wouldn’t welcome a kiss from James after all? Would another greenery-induced gesture of affection push Michael over the edge? Forget invigorating and terrifying. His previous desire and fear, now joined with worry that he had missed his opportunity, was downright _paralyzing_.  
  
He stuck his hand in his pocket and gave his bundle of mistletoe a little caress. He’d taken to carrying it around with him at all times, ever hopeful he’d be brave enough to use it. So far the only times it had seen the outside of his pockets were when he was surreptitiously moving it back and forth between his street clothes and his costumes for the day, and again when he took it out in the privacy of his hotel room. The poor thing was starting to look a bit bedraggled.  
  
“Maybe soon, little buddy, maybe soon.” Uh-oh, things were bad; he was talking to his sprig of mistletoe. At least he hadn’t named it yet. He gave it another little pet for solace, though he wasn’t entirely sure if he was comforting the mistletoe or if it was consoling him for his lack of Michael-flavored kisses.  
  
“James? Were you just talking to yourself?”  
  
James absolutely did not jump at Michael’s voice cutting through his daydreams, nor did he let out a little squeak. He was sticking to that story too, even though he could tell by the amused look on Michael’s face that he’d been caught out. “I’ll have you know talking to yourself is a powerful acting tool.”  
  
“Oh?” The cheerfully intrigued tone of Michael’s voice was accompanied by a teasing tilt of an eyebrow.  
  
James found himself staring at said eyebrow. And the gorgeous eye underneath it. For a moment too long, apparently, because the glint in Michael’s eye started to dim. James did not want to be the cause of that; he checked over his shoulder to see if perhaps it was imminent danger of another mistletoe attack that had drained the liveliness from Michael’s eye. Surprisingly, they were alone. For once.  
  
So he flashed his most blinding smile at Michael, and answered. “Of course, you git, haven’t you learned that yet in the course of your illustrious career? All the greatest actors talk to themselves! Besides, Sir Smooch-a-Lot, some of us have to find other ways of occupying our mouths.” He also couldn’t resist waggling his eyebrows to go along with that one. And he hoped Michael couldn’t hear how loudly his heart was thumping in his chest.  
  
Since Michael was still drawing all of James’ attention like a blazing sun, James didn’t miss the looks that flitted across Michael’s face: a small measure of pain and something that looked like wistful hope before the expression settled on amusement.  
  
“Sir Smooch-a-Lot? Is that what they’re calling me these days?”  
  
“Well, if the smooch fits, as they say. Really, though, how’re you holding up with all that? It’s been looking like everyone on set has had a taste of you so far.”  
  
The playful - and what James fervently hoped was flirty -  gleam came back into Michael’s sea-glass eyes. “Not quite everyone, James.”  
  
Perhaps the universe did like James after all; there couldn’t possibly be a better opening than this, right? He screwed together his courage, reached for his pet bundle of mistletoe, and gave Michael a coy look.  
  
But then again, maybe the universe had just been toying with him. Cruelly. He hadn’t even gotten the mistletoe out of his pocket, nor managed a single word other than “I...” before Kevin Bacon appeared, still smiling gleefully, and dangled mistletoe over Michael’s head.  
  
Even the mistletoe managed to look smug.  
  
Michael rolled his eyes, and let himself be kissed by someone else who wasn’t James, and James vowed to punch Kevin in the face later, consequences be damned.  
  
  
  
  
By the end of the day, Michael found himself exhausted. Not from filming—it hadn’t been that strenuous a day, mostly watching fake broadcasts on the television and playing countless games of chess with James—and not even from the kissing, though that, at least, seemed to be finally dying down. He’d’ve liked to think that that was because the cast and crew and universe had at last noticed how sick of it he was, but truthfully he suspected it was only that he’d kissed everyone on the film set by now.  
  
Well. Almost everyone. The exception was sitting across from him in an overstuffed leather chair, gazing directionlessly at a chessboard, and rubbing the bridge of his nose in the way that meant he had a vicious headache.  
  
“James?”

“I’m fine, sorry...”  
  
“Are you sure?”  
  
“You don’t have to worry,” James said, which wasn’t an answer, and _was_ precisely why Michael was worried, which was also why the exhaustion. He’d spent all day being worried about James.  
  
The preoccupation, the distraction, from that morning had never gone away. James had been about to say something, he’d thought, some question or confession or explanation, and he’d been trying not to be afraid because whatever it was couldn’t be good, not when it’d left James looking so worn-down and miserable. He’d been preparing himself for anything, ready to be a good friend no matter what James said next, and then Kevin Bacon had materialized with the stupid fucking mistletoe and James hadn’t said anything after all.  
  
Michael’d tried all day to coax James into speaking up again, without success. James had smiled, though, a small victory, when Michael had brought him coffee, and again when he’d tripped over nothing at all, walking down the hall, and Michael’d been there to catch him.  
  
They’d stood in place for a second, both catching their breath, after that. James was rarely clumsy, despite the normal exuberance; Michael’d held him gently, hands resting on his shoulders, and their eyes had met, and lingered, for an extra heartbeat.  
  
And then Matthew had pulled out the megaphone and shouted at them, down the hall, and James had blushed, and looked away, and the moment had evaporated into shared irritation.  
  
James had muttered, walking into the study, “So we’re hiding his megaphone again tonight, right?” and Michael had laughed, and agreed.  
  
“Of course I have to worry,” he said now, because it was true. “You’d worry about me, if I looked like you do at the moment.”  
  
“Thanks for that.”  
  
“Any time. Seriously, though, we are done for the day, you remember that, right?” Around them, the crew was happily dismantling lights and camera equipment and sound devices. In the whirlwind of motion, no one was paying the actual actors any attention. “So can we get you up, and out of Charles’s suit, and back to the hotel?”  
  
“I know we’re done.” James sighed. “I just...I think I have a headache. And I’m kind of tired. Do you think anyone would care if I slept here?”  
  
“Even you can’t be comfortable sleeping in that chair all night. Come on, up...”  
  
“What do you mean, even me?” James said, but let Michael take his hand and pull him up out of the grasp of too-affectionate furniture. “And thank you for the concern, but you very much don’t have to help me walk.”  
  
“I’m not convinced you can handle stairs, and I meant the fact that only a person your size would ever even contemplate fitting onto that chair for the purposes of sleep. It wouldn’t work.”  
  
“That chair and I are friends. It would take care of me. It likes me. You might be right about the stairs.”  
  
“Everyone likes you, including inanimate objects, and now I’m even more concerned. Come on...”  
  
They made it back to James’s trailer with only minor mishaps, James leaning tiredly into Michael’s arm and Michael glaring at the first wide-eyed intern who sprinted up, clutching something ominously green and leafy, and who then backed slowly away on seeing his expression. No one else made the attempt, after that. Good for them.  
  
He got James into the trailer and set him down on the ancient couch, which creaked distressingly under their combined weight. They both ignored the household commentary.  
  
“Was that someone else trying to kiss you, just then?”  
  
“No?”  
  
“It was.” James sighed; the sound came from someplace deep inside, shadowed and broken. “Did you want to kiss him?”  
  
“No!”  
  
“Really?”

“James, I am incredibly, unbelievably, done with being kissed. Honestly. Kevin is a bastard.”  
  
“Oh,” James said, and then went very quiet.  
  
“...James?”

“Yes?”  
  
“Are you all right?”  
  
“Yes?”  
  
“You are not.”  
  
“Oh, all right, then, if you say so, I’m not, so now that we’ve established that, can we not talk about it?”  
  
Michael blinked. Stared. He’d not been expecting that forceful a response. Didn’t know what to say in return.  
  
Apparently James hadn’t been expecting it either, though, because he sighed again. “Sorry. I’m...sorry. You’re right, I’m not all right, and I am very tired. But I shouldn’t’ve yelled at you. I know you’re trying to help.”  
  
“It’s fine. You can yell at me if you want to. If that’ll help. But you...you were going to say something, earlier today, weren’t you? This morning? If you still want to—to talk, or—you can tell me anything. You know that.”  
  
“Not this. I’m sorry. Again.”

“I—”  
  
“I need to change. And give the wardrobe people back the suit on time, for once. And if anyone asks I have no idea what happened to those pairs of Charles’s fingerless gloves.”  
  
“Weren’t you wearing a pair at dinner yesterday? The blue ones?”

“Yes, and you’re going to say you have no idea what happened to those, either. Are you leaving, or were you planning to stay in here while I change?”  
  
“Um...no. No, I’m not going to leave. I think you’re angry with me and I don’t know why and I don’t want you to be angry with me. So, no.”  
  
“I’m not angry. Well, not with you.” James got up, only wobbling slightly on his feet. Caught himself on the closest supportive wall. Started determinedly poking at sweater buttons.  
  
“James,” Michael tried, attempting patience, “can you please just tell me what—”  
  
“No!” James gave up on the buttons and yanked the sweater off. Threw it at the couch. They both watched as it hit the arm and bounced off, and then kept watching as a tiny tangle of greenery fell out of the fabric and rolled merrily across the floor.  
  
There was a single second of utter silence, and then they both lunged for the evidence. Michael had longer legs, and so got there first.  
  
“James, is this mistletoe?”  
  
“No!”  
  
“Did it just fall out of your costume?”  
  
“Still no!”

“Why are you carrying mistletoe?”  
  
“I’m not!”  
  
“Yes, you are! And you’re a terrible liar!”  
  
“I’m an extremely good liar! I’m just not very good at lying to you!”  
  
“Well...good!” At which point he actually heard his own words, and how ridiculous they sounded, bouncing around in the air.  
  
James was glaring at him. This was an improvement on James looking withdrawn and heart-sore, but not by much.  
  
Michael opened his mouth to ask “Was your mistletoe for me?” and then stopped, abruptly. Too much of an assumption. James had never wanted to kiss him, after all. James might’ve been holding the mistletoe for someone else, part of Kevin’s nefarious plan, or potentially James was hoping to hijack the mistletoe eruption for his own ends and kiss another person, some person he’d met on set and fallen madly in love with, someone who wasn’t Michael.  
  
He had no reason, none at all, to assume that James was carrying it for _him_. Except for how desperately he wanted it to be true.  
  
“Can I have that back, now?” James seemed to have run out of anger. Was studying the carpet, eyes down, instead. And those shoulders looked so very tired. Defeated.  
  
“Was this for me?” And, oh, god, he’d asked. The question echoed off the thin trailer walls and the curious couch and the innocuous sprig of leaves, in his hand. Like the single sound responsible for the looming avalanche.  
  
James glanced up, briefly. Then back down, at the carpet, as if the cheap grey floor covering was the most fascinating thing he’d ever seen. “I’m really not good at lying to you, so, um, can I just not answer? Please?”  
  
“Ah...no. No. James...” He took a step closer. James looked up again, at the nearness. Those eyes, the color of the sky in summer, met his; and he thought that maybe he saw hesitance, there, but also something that might’ve been fragile hope, tentative and disbelieving as the first early ray of sunlight peeking into the world.  
  
“If I wanted it to be for me,” he said, very softly, and took one more step, and the eyes stayed on his, and got a little wider, and the hope less fragile, too.  
  
“You would,” James breathed, “you would want it to be—you would let me kiss you?”  
  
And Michael, shocked, heart threatening to break at the astonishment in the honest question, blurted out the word that’d been on the tip of his tongue anyway. “Yes!”  
  
 _“Yes?”_  
  
“James, you—” He gave up on words. Held James’s ragged bundle of holiday festiveness higher, over their heads; when James looked up, involuntarily, Michael kissed him.  
  
It was the best kiss of his life. The only kiss. He’d never _been_ kissed, before.  
  
James kissed intently, as if the touch of their lips together was, not the most important piece, but the only piece of the world. Everything.  
  
Michael might’ve tried to be more forceful, might have reached out and put a hand into James’s hair and pulled him in closer, or tested how far James might let him explore, teeth and tongue and tasting everywhere, but he didn’t do any of those things, because he was busy marveling at the fact that James was kissing him back.  
  
James was kissing him. In the dilapidated on-set trailer, James’s sweater lying lazily where it’d fallen to the floor, the last rays of sunlight tumbling in through the window around them. And it was glorious.  
  
James, apparently, could still do things, a fact which Michael discovered when James’s tongue slipped into his mouth, tracing over his lips, curious and making discoveries. When James did a very specific thing with the tongue, Michael forgot how to do anything except gasp into the kiss, which meant that he dropped the mistletoe.  
  
It landed on James. Who started laughing, or possibly crying, or something in between. “Seriously?”

“You distracted me!”  
  
“I’m not sorry about that!”  
  
“Neither am I. James...how long have you...no, never mind. You could’ve dropped the mistletoe on _me_. Any time.”

“Um.” James licked his lips. Michael had to smile; the gesture was familiar, but the pinkness of those just-kissed lips was new, and he loved it.. “...what?”

“Nothing. I just...you do that, when you’re thinking. I like it.”  
  
“I do what?”  
  
“The...lip-licking...thing. That you just...never mind. Really. I didn’t say anything.”  
  
“You mean this lip-licking thing?”  
  
“...that’s not the same thing you just did, but if you ever do that again I won’t be responsible for what happens next. But you were going to say something. What—”  
  
“I was? Oh...I was. About the mistletoe...” James bent down and picked up the bundle, off the floor. Played with it, absentmindedly. After a second, obviously noticed Michael watching his hands, and smiled, and reached over and collected one of Michael’s into his own. “I was trying. Other people kept getting in the way. Or kissing you first. And I could never find the right time to—it was frustrating. More than frustrating, actually; you have no idea.”  
  
“Actually, I do.”  
  
“Oh. I’m sorry. I did want to kiss you. I do want to kiss you. Pretty much ever since I saw you kissing Hugh.”

“...Hugh?” But he leaned forward and brushed their lips together, one more time, lightly, because he could. James smiled again.  
  
“Jealousy is kind of physically painful. I think at one point I contemplated having a heart attack right here in the trailer.”  
  
“I’m so sorry. I didn’t know—I was only—you _what?_ Sit down!”  
  
“All right, now you’re being ludicrously overprotective, and no, you don’t need to be sorry, I knew you were just playing along, and I’m sorry. For not kissing you sooner. For not telling you that I wanted to kiss you. I love you.”  
  
“You...what?”

“Oh, god,” James said, and shut his eyes. “Okay, so, I’m owed a heart attack in my trailer, I think I said...”  
  
“James, I love you!”  
  
“You what?”

“I love you and your mistletoe and the way you kiss me!”  
  
And James opened his eyes again, all beautiful blue, and didn’t resist when Michael put both arms around him and walked them over to the couch. Laughed, when Michael considered for less than a heartbeat and then sat down and pulled James down on top of him, in his lap, holding on. The couch grumbled at them again, and then accepted its fate.  
  
“I love you too. And the way _you_ kiss _me_. And the mistletoe, even though we should probably blame Kevin for that...”  
  
“I’m not sure I’m willing to love Kevin, but I feel like I ought to be thanking him somehow.”  
  
“I feel like you ought to kiss me again. And no one else. Not ever. Only me.”

“James,” Michael said, “I never wanted to kiss anyone else anyway, only you,” and when those ocean-depth eyes lit up, all excited, he took that as the invitation it was, and demonstrated his excitement, too. Unmistakably, and multiple times.  
  
Eventually, they made it out of the trailer, and back to the hotel, where Michael discovered that James had icy feet, in the night, and they both learned that Michael would never allow James to have icy feet in the night. And when James woke up, the next morning, Michael held up that recognizable bundle of leaves, slightly crumpled because he’d had to rescue it off the trailer floor and hide it in his pocket. Said, before James had finished sleepily yawning, “Kiss me?”  
  
James grinned. Yanked him back down into the bed. And the mistletoe ended up sadly crushed and misshapen, and neither of them cared.  
  
Walking onto set the next chilly morning, with Michael’s hand securely wrapped around James’s fingertips because those weren’t covered by Charles’s liberated gloves, they discovered a distinct absence of green leaves and holiday flora. In fact, no one appeared to be carrying mistletoe, or trying to kiss Michael, at all.  
  
James raised his eyebrows. “Maybe Kevin got bored?”  
  
“That’s never a safe assumption.”  
  
“No,” Kevin said from behind them, making them both jump, “but it is, in this case, true. Even a good joke gets stale, after a while. And, Michael, if you’re going to terrify the interns, you’re not going to be fun anymore.”  
  
“I—”  
  
“Poor Steve might be traumatized for life. Apparently you looked like you wanted to kill him. Also, James, glad you’re feeling better. Especially if that means that Michael can stop terrifying the interns.”

“Do you know _everything_?”  
  
“Yes.”  
  
James leaned in, and whispered, in Michael’s ear, “Probably not everything...”  
  
“Yes, I do. Even that. Now, as much as I love chatting with you, and I do, I also have plans for Matthew’s office and five hundred Christmas snowglobes.”  
  
“Everything,” Michael echoed, again, realizing; and then, “Kevin, wait,” and then, wholeheartedly, “thank you.” And Kevin grinned. “Merry Christmas, you two. Oh, hang on, I think I have one more. Last one.”  
  
“One more—”  
  
When Kevin tossed the final sprig of mistletoe at them and departed, it was Michael who caught it. But it was James who kissed him, this time, outside in the wintry December air, surrounded by laughter, and clear crisp sunbeams, and love.


End file.
